Claims of intimidation and denial of services fuel uncertainty outside Home Affairs in Durban

The defunding of the Refugee Appeals Authority of South Africa (RAASA) has come under scrutiny after the body revealed it is buckling under a backlog of 161,000 asylum seekers.

Only 70,976 of these active appeals from asylum seekers fighting deportation orders, while 90,024 are people who can no longer be traced after abandoning their adjudication processes.

The statistics were presented at the Home Affairs parliamentary committee meeting this week, where officials disclosed that RAASA’s adjudication panel had been slashed from 36 members to just nine following funding cuts by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This led to only 4,475 appeals being finalised in 2025.